Movies: Past, present and future

'Machete's' Danny Trejo will kill again

August 29, 2010 | 12:34pm

Fans of Danny Trejo get their full dose of the Latino baddie in this weekend's "Machete." We'll have more later in the week from the character actor, who has had smaller parts in dozens of movies but is finally getting his close-up, playing a part he and Robert Rodriguez describe as the "first Latino superhero."

In the meantime,one interesting tidbit to emerge from our conversation with Trejo: The actor will reunite with "Machete" costar Michelle Rodriguez in a new indie called "Skinny Dip."

The movie is a revenge picture involving a young woman who kills a policeman, and Trejo is keeping it in the family: His son Gilbert will produce and likely co-direct. In case there wasn't enough of the ethnic pride/campiness that Trejo is known for in his work, the other director is a young filmmaker with the perfect name of Frankie Latina.

(No word yet, incidentally, on sequel plans for "Machete," though it's likely Rodriguez, who actually wrote the film back in the early '90s, has some ideas. Certainly, the movie, which got a jolt in development when a fake trailer for it ran in the 2007 movie "Grindhouse," plays on our sequel expectations, with a credit sequence that touts fictitious followups "Machete Kills" and "Machete Kills Again.")

The 22-year-old Gilbert Trejo grew up on movie sets and around movie stars -- Trejo the Elder likes to recall the time his son met Robert De Niro and did a "You talkin' to me" impression (Gilbert was 9). The younger Trejo also occupies one of the low-riders in the climactic scene of "Machete" (firing missiles from a rooftop turret, of course).

Danny Trejo quips that he hopes his son makes it as a filmmaker "so he can give me a job." With the mustachioed one currently booking 10 to 13 gigs per year, we suspect getting a job is no real problem.

Dude I remember the first time I ever saw Trejo, in Robert Rodriguez's DESPERADO when I was a youngster at the movies with my Dad. He had all those throwing knives and we thought he was so rad!!! We saw the film two nights in a row and cheered when he started going to town on dudes in the middle of the street.

"...more talented film maker who worked his way through school."
Sorry Dennis, that's truly ridiculous. Film School means jack. Trejo deserves everything that is coming his way.
It's not a zero-sum game. Go make your own movie like Roberto Rodriguez did.